Netanyahu told an audience that he understood the pain of Israeli families who lost relatives in Palestinian violence, but that Israel's ethos of doing everything possible to bring its soldiers home safely forced him to act.

He also issued a staunch warning to the freed militants. "We will continue to fight terror and every released terrorist who returns to terror will be held accountable," he said.

Those concerns were underscored with comments by one of the freed prisoners, Hamas militant leader Yehia Sinwar, who called on the movement to kidnap more soldiers.

Hamas agreed to release Schalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis. The arrivals of the prisoners set off ecstatic celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where large crowds and dignitaries greeted them.

In Gaza, prisoners embraced and shook hands with Hamas leaders at the Rafah border crossing.

Tens of thousands of flag-waving Palestinians celebrated at a rally that quickly turned into a show of strength by the Islamic militant group, which seized control of Gaza from its rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007.

On a sandy lot, a huge stage was set up and decorated with a mural depicting Schalit's capture in a June 2006. Thousands hoisted green Hamas flags.

"My happiness is indescribable," said Azhar Abu Jawad, a 30-year-old woman who celebrated the return of a brother who had been sentenced to life for killing an Israeli in 1992.

"We'll get him a bride and everything. I just spoke to him. He's so happy. This is a reminder, God doesn't forget anyone," she said.

In the West Bank, released prisoners were taken to the grave of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas greeted them, and several thousand people filled the courtyard outside his headquarters to celebrate.

"We thank God for your return and your safety," Abbas said. "You are freedom fighters and holy warriors for the sake of God and the homeland."

Eventually there will be war. It is inevitable. Israel is screwed and I feel the sentiment in the US is turning against the "Jews".

Here is his statement:

****October 11, 2011, 6:01 pm

Netanyahu Statement on Shalit DealBy ROBERT MACKEYWe have concluded ardeous negotiations with #Hamas to release #Gilad #Shalit. He will be coming home in the next few days.Tue Oct 11 18:54:24 via webThe PM of IsraelIsraeliPM

Below is the complete text of remarks made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday, at the start of an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss a prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas. The agreement would secure the release of a single captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Today, I bring a proposal to the government for a deal that will bring Gilad Shalit home alive and well; bring him home to his parents, Aviva and Noam; his brother, Yoel; his sister, Hadas; his grandfather Zvi; and the entire people of Israel. Two and a half years ago, when the government was formed, I took upon myself, as my first priority, to bring Gilad home to his people, to his family — to bring him home safe and sound.

At the time, Gilad was already held in captivity for two and a half years, with no visits from the Red Cross, with no visits at all, and we did not know what state he was in. The first step I took, and we approved it here in the government, was to get a video recording of Gilad, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw it. We saw that he was functioning, physically, mentally and cognitively. We saw that he was functioning well. We knew that he was healthy and that he was alive. I regarded that tape as an insurance policy, because it obliged the Hamas before the international community to safeguard him, to keep him alive and maintain his health. But that was obviously only the first step.

The most important mission that we had was more challenging — to actually bring Gilad home. To that end we held long and tough negotiations through the German mediator. These negotiations were based on a framework outlined by the previous government. They were long and exhausting and despite all our efforts, a deal was not reached.

I must point out that not a day went by without us trying various ways to bring Gilad home, any way possible, and that didn’t work either. In the last few weeks, the negotiations were renewed in Cairo, this time with the Egyptian government as mediator. My instructions to the team were to adhere to the principles and framework that are important for the security of the State of Israel, which I will detail in the meeting.

There is an in-built tension between the desire to bring back an abducted soldier, or citizen, and the need to maintain the security of the citizens of Israel. This is my dual responsibility as prime minister.

The deal I am bringing to the government expresses the right balance between all of these considerations. I do not wish to hide the truth from you — it is a very difficult decision. I feel for the families of victims of terror, I appreciate their suffering and distress, I am one of them. But leadership must be examined at moments such as this, being able to make difficult, but right, decisions.

I believe that we have reached the best deal we could have at this time, when storms are sweeping the Middle East. I do not know if in the near future we would have been able to reach a better deal or any deal at all. It is very possible that this window of opportunity that opened because of the circumstances would close indefinitely and we would never have been able to bring Gilad home at all.

Therefore, for all of these reasons, I instructed the team to put their initials on the deal last Thursday, and today it was finalized and signed by both sides. I thank my military secretary, Maj. Gen. Yohanan Locker; the chief of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen; my personal envoy to the negotiations, David Meidan; and his predecessor, Hagai Hadas. I thank the team that has accompanied them all these years.

I thank the [Israel Defense Forces], the security forces for doing everything they could regarding Gilad Shalit. I also wish to thank the German mediator, and the chancellor, Angela Merkel, who supported his mission all along. send a special thanks to the government of Egypt and the Egyptian intelligence services for providing much assistance in mediating and helping us reaching this agreement.Log InRegister NowHome PageToday's PaperVideoMost PopularTimes TopicsSearch All NYTimes.comTuesday, October 18, 2011NewsWorldU.S.N.Y. / RegionBusinessTechnologyScienceHealthSportsOpinionArtsStyleTravelJobsReal EstateAutos--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 11, 2011, 6:01 pmNetanyahu Statement on Shalit DealBy ROBERT MACKEYWe have concluded ardeous negotiations with #Hamas to release #Gilad #Shalit. He will be coming home in the next few days.Tue Oct 11 18:54:24 via webThe PM of IsraelIsraeliPM

Below is the complete text of remarks made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday, at the start of an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss a prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas. The agreement would secure the release of a single captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Today, I bring a proposal to the government for a deal that will bring Gilad Shalit home alive and well; bring him home to his parents, Aviva and Noam; his brother, Yoel; his sister, Hadas; his grandfather Zvi; and the entire people of Israel. Two and a half years ago, when the government was formed, I took upon myself, as my first priority, to bring Gilad home to his people, to his family — to bring him home safe and sound.

At the time, Gilad was already held in captivity for two and a half years, with no visits from the Red Cross, with no visits at all, and we did not know what state he was in. The first step I took, and we approved it here in the government, was to get a video recording of Gilad, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw it. We saw that he was functioning, physically, mentally and cognitively. We saw that he was functioning well. We knew that he was healthy and that he was alive. I regarded that tape as an insurance policy, because it obliged the Hamas before the international community to safeguard him, to keep him alive and maintain his health. But that was obviously only the first step.

The most important mission that we had was more challenging — to actually bring Gilad home. To that end we held long and tough negotiations through the German mediator. These negotiations were based on a framework outlined by the previous government. They were long and exhausting and despite all our efforts, a deal was not reached.

I must point out that not a day went by without us trying various ways to bring Gilad home, any way possible, and that didn’t work either. In the last few weeks, the negotiations were renewed in Cairo, this time with the Egyptian government as mediator. My instructions to the team were to adhere to the principles and framework that are important for the security of the State of Israel, which I will detail in the meeting.

There is an in-built tension between the desire to bring back an abducted soldier, or citizen, and the need to maintain the security of the citizens of Israel. This is my dual responsibility as prime minister.

The deal I am bringing to the government expresses the right balance between all of these considerations. I do not wish to hide the truth from you — it is a very difficult decision. I feel for the families of victims of terror, I appreciate their suffering and distress, I am one of them. But leadership must be examined at moments such as this, being able to make difficult, but right, decisions.

I believe that we have reached the best deal we could have at this time, when storms are sweeping the Middle East. I do not know if in the near future we would have been able to reach a better deal or any deal at all. It is very possible that this window of opportunity that opened because of the circumstances would close indefinitely and we would never have been able to bring Gilad home at all.

Therefore, for all of these reasons, I instructed the team to put their initials on the deal last Thursday, and today it was finalized and signed by both sides. I thank my military secretary, Maj. Gen. Yohanan Locker; the chief of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen; my personal envoy to the negotiations, David Meidan; and his predecessor, Hagai Hadas. I thank the team that has accompanied them all these years.

I thank the [Israel Defense Forces], the security forces for doing everything they could regarding Gilad Shalit. I also wish to thank the German mediator, and the chancellor, Angela Merkel, who supported his mission all along. send a special thanks to the government of Egypt and the Egyptian intelligence services for providing much assistance in mediating and helping us reaching this agreement.

This morning I Invited Noam Shalit to my residence, and I spoke on the phone with the mother, Aviva, and the grandfather, Zvi. I told them that I am keeping my promise and I’m bringing their son and grandson home. I told them, “I’m bringing your boy back.” I am happy that I succeeded in fulfilling the Jewish decree of redeeming captives, and if all goes as planned, Gilad will be back in Israel in the next few days with his family and his people.

The nation of Israel is a unique people. We are all mutually responsible for each other, as our sages said: “He who saves one soul, it is as though he saved an entire world.” Tonight, I bring the government a proposal to save Gilad Shalit, to finally bring him home to Israel after five years.

I have a high regard for Stratfor, but I've seen better from Newspeak than this one:

Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.Related Links• Gilad Shalit Returns to Israel• Israeli-Arab Crisis Approaching• From the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush: Rethinking the RegionIsrael and Hamas began operationalizing the deal that was struck last week, according to which an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, would be released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. The process is still under way but it is a significant one, considering that this is the first substantive negotiated settlement between Hamas and Israel and there are implications that that stem from it.The release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners has set a precedent, a precedent by which Hamas and Israel have demonstrated that they can negotiate and reach a settlement. What this means is, or at least paves the way for, is that future negotiations can take place between the Palestinian Islamist movement and the Jewish state. This allows Hamas to be able to demonstrate that it is a pragmatic player that can engage in substantive negotiations and behave as a rational international political actor. That said, Hamas does run into problems because it needs to balance this newly emerging perception of a rational political actor with that of a resistance movement, one that does not recognize Israel, rejects the right of Israel to exist and continues on the path of armed struggle against the Jewish state.Hamas isn’t the only political actor that will have implications from this deal. Its rival Fatah is now in a more difficult position because Hamas, from the point of view of the Palestinian people, seemingly has demonstrated that its approach to negotiations, coupled with armed resistance, is one that can actually pay off. So Fatah is under pressure to demonstrate that it is not negotiating from a position of relative weakness and its approach to negotiations and to dealing with the Palestinian issue through international channels is actually the right way to move forward.And certainly Israel has its own challenges moving forward after the Gilad Shalit deal. On one hand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has demonstrated that it can take a pragmatic approach to the Palestinian issue and therefore it can relieve some of the international pressure that it has been under in recent months. But at the same time having positioned itself as a centrist force the Netanyahu government, headed by the Likud Party, is now having to deal with potential backlash for more right-wing forces, both nationalist and religious, who are not entirely pleased with the notion that one Israeli soldier can be secured in exchange for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners who have committed acts of terrorism against Israeli citizens.On the international front the Netanyahu government has definitely made some gains, but at the same time it could run into some complications when it comes to Egypt, because Egypt is the one that brokered the final settlement. And Israel is very concerned that Egypt’s military rulers do not run into any problems when it comes to popular sentiment, especially as it applies to the Palestinian issue. And therefore Cairo’s military rulers can be expected to use that Israeli dependency on them to their advantage on the domestic political front, which may not necessarily jibe with Israeli interests.The Israeli-Hamas deal is an extraordinary event that comes at an extraordinary time, when there is no shortage of issues raging in the region. But one thing is clear — that it has set a precedent that can unfold in many ways, and we will just have to wait and see whether this leads to further negotiations or more conflict or a mix of both.

I said before but it still seems to me that whatever the underlying thinking is for the Israeli side of the deal, they aren't going to tell us. Stratfor is holding back the conjecture they usually add that tries to make sense of things. Makes me think (as already said by CCP) Israel is preparing for some act of war and Shalit would certainly have been murdered in response. Maybe they are preparing something relating to security that would 1027 more terror soldiers back on enemy ground of little consequence.

CCP: "Eventually there will be war. It is inevitable. Israel is screwed and I feel the sentiment in the US is turning against the "Jews"."

Yes. Not being able to count on America might actually simplify their options, allow for actions not available when the focus is always on jumping through the international hoops of acceptance.

I don't know exactly where we are in this so-called Arab spring process, nor I suppose does anyone else. The calm before the storm is probably the best guess. Israeli intelligence and military strategists must assume and prepare for the worst case scenario if the goal is a 100% chance of survival.

I was not familiar with Mr. Shalit. Judging from his photo on wikipedia I am guessing that what is special about Gilad Shalit is merely his youthfulness and innocence, symbolic of any young man lost from any Israeli family. He was just serving his country and for that has been held 5 years behind enemy lines. I am reminded of a comment made by Mariane Pearl, widow of Daniel Pearl, saying to Jim Lehrer about those who beheaded him - they are a "nuisance to humanity", meaning of no value to the human race dead or alive. In that sense maybe Israel got the better end of this deal - receiving more value in one person than Hamas is getting with a thousand.

Another CCP point: "one downside is it encourages more hostage taking"

The only consolation to that is that if they already have a 100% incentive to take hostages, it is hard for that incentive to increase.

"Not being able to count on America might actually simplify their options"

Interesting thought. What little I hear is Israel is arming for the inevitable with submarines, anti ballistics and Netanyahu has plainly said we will do it ourselves.

"jumping through the international hoops of acceptance."

No matter what they do they have an enemy hell bent on wanting them driven out of Israel either by exodus or extermination.The international community (pardon this stupid phrase) won't budge it seems till its too late if at all.

"Judging from his photo on wikipedia"

I appeared thin to start with but his picture recently shows someone who was kept on bare subsistance.

Truthfully, I am not very religious at all. Yet I guess there is still something in me about this. I have tears just seeing all this.

Yes some Jews are pushy. Take Soros. Yet cannot the world leave us the hell alone to live in peace.

I keep hearing Jews worrying about the Blacks and the poor etc. Has anyone heard one prominant Black or otherwise minority or poor person speak up for a Jew?

The Popular Resistance Committees, the Hamas-dominated militant coalition that captured Sgt Maj Shalit, vowed that it would seize another Israeli soldier to force Israel to release the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners that remain in its custody.

"We are going to capture another soldier and cleanse all the Israeli jails of our prisoners," said a masked spokesman using the nom de guerre Abu Mujahid.

For many Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, the release of so many prisoners for one man is evidence that Israel responds only to threats, making the path of peaceful negotiation espoused by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and his moderate Fatah party nonsensical. "The people want a new Gilad, the people want a new Gilad," chanted the tens of thousands who gathered at a Hamas-sponsored rally in Gaza city to welcome home the freed prisoners.

The first thing I thought when I heard they traded 1000 for 1 was that they were planning on killing everyone, and wanted to have a clean crack at killing everyone they released. That's just my sunny side talking though.

The first thing I thought when I heard they traded 1000 for 1 was that they were planning on killing everyone, and wanted to have a clean crack at killing everyone they released. That's just my sunny side talking though.

Netanyahu told an audience that he understood the pain of Israeli families who lost relatives in Palestinian violence, but that Israel's ethos of doing everything possible to bring its soldiers home safely forced him to act.

He also issued a staunch warning to the freed militants. "We will continue to fight terror and every released terrorist who returns to terror will be held accountable," he said.

Those concerns were underscored with comments by one of the freed prisoners, Hamas militant leader Yehia Sinwar, who called on the movement to kidnap more soldiers.

Hamas agreed to release Schalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis. The arrivals of the prisoners set off ecstatic celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where large crowds and dignitaries greeted them.

In Gaza, prisoners embraced and shook hands with Hamas leaders at the Rafah border crossing.

Tens of thousands of flag-waving Palestinians celebrated at a rally that quickly turned into a show of strength by the Islamic militant group, which seized control of Gaza from its rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007.

On a sandy lot, a huge stage was set up and decorated with a mural depicting Schalit's capture in a June 2006. Thousands hoisted green Hamas flags.

"My happiness is indescribable," said Azhar Abu Jawad, a 30-year-old woman who celebrated the return of a brother who had been sentenced to life for killing an Israeli in 1992.

"We'll get him a bride and everything. I just spoke to him. He's so happy. This is a reminder, God doesn't forget anyone," she said.

In the West Bank, released prisoners were taken to the grave of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas greeted them, and several thousand people filled the courtyard outside his headquarters to celebrate.

"We thank God for your return and your safety," Abbas said. "You are freedom fighters and holy warriors for the sake of God and the homeland."

A week after the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, top Saudi cleric Dr. Awad al-Qarni is offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who kidnaps Israeli soldiers.

He is responding to an ad published by the Libman family offering a similar reward for anyone who catches the person who murdered their relative Shlomo Libman. Libman was killed by terrorists near the settlement of Yitzhar in 1998.

Israeli army officers ordered to foil kidnappings, even at expense of soldier's life Hamas vows to abduct more soldiers

"The press reported that the Zionist settlers will pay huge amounts of money to whoever kills the freed Palestinian prisoners," al-Qarni said. "In response to these criminals I declare to the world that any Palestinian who will jail an Israeli soldier and exchange him for prisoners will be rewarded with a $100,000 prize," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Al-Qarni's Facebook page

Al-Qarni's post has already received more than 1,000 likes and extensive coverage in Hamas-affiliated newspapers in Gaza.

Al-Qarni is a famous Muslim cleric who often guests on TV shows and operates his own website where he discusses various religious law issues. The Palestine-Islam issue is particularly close to his heart.

In Defense of U.S. Aid to IsraelPosted By David Meir-Levi On October 27, 2011

As demonstrated in the present writer’s two previous articles (here and here) regarding US aid to Israel, the USA, in return for its aid and political support, receives from Israel very profitable financial and political reciprocity and significant benefits in the areas of military intelligence, ordnance and operations. On the other hand, America’s aid to Israel’s enemies actually supports America’s enemies, underwrites in part their terrorist actions against our soldiers and civilians, funds the very countries that openly seek our destruction, and pays the salaries of Arab terrorist mass murderers.

Why then do some scholars, journalists and political commentators devote so much time and energy to arguing that American aid to Israel is excessive, a waste of the American taxpayers’ money, and a political liability to the USA?

Take for example, one among many, the Washington D.C. economist Thomas Stauffer who warned us in 2002 that Israel is bankrupting America, having received more than $1.6 trillion in foreign aid since 1973. Stauffer upped the ante a year later with the assertion in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) that the cost to the US taxpayer of our government’s support of Israel is actually $3 trillion!

The real numbers are actually rather easy to ascertain. The Congressional Research Service provides annual reports for Congress on a wide variety of issues, among them the total cost of American aid to Israel. Their analysts do not seem to be especially pro- or anti-Israel. The most recent report, for 2010, indicates that the total US aid to Israel for military, economic and immigrant resettlement costs from 1949 to 2010 was $109 billion dollars or, on average, less than $2 billion per year. As is apparent from the 2010 report, US aid to Israel was zero or negligible until 1967 (after the 6-Day War), and did not reach the current annual sums of $2.5 billion to $3 billion or more until 1997 (following the Oslo Accords). $3 billion per year is not chump change; but it is hardy an amount that would “bankrupt” the USA, and it is not much more than America’s annual aid to Egypt.

Moreover, as explained in the present writer’s two previous articles, American support for Israel is a very profitable investment for the USA rather than a gift to Israel.

Compare $109 billion to Stauffer’s $3 trillion! Recall that a million million, or one thousand billion, equals one trillion. Stauffer has inflated his numbers by a factor of 30!

How does he come up with his trillions? – by throwing in the proverbial “kitchen sink.”

Stauffer reaches his enormous sums by adding to the bona fide aid his utterly irrational but self-serving assertion that Israel is to blame for post-1973 rises in oil prices and thus bears the onus of culpability for America’s energy costs after the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the 1974 Arab oil embargo. He never mentions that this embargo was imposed by our so-called ally Saudi Arabia, nor does he venture to suggest what Israel should have done when Egypt and Syria invaded — not defend itself? In which case there would have been a very short Yom Kippur war and no oil embargo, but also no Israel?He throws in as well the cost of American trade restrictions on Libya, Iraq and Iran; but never explains how these restrictions, a function of decisions made by our President and Congress, are Israel’s fault. He even decries American Jews’ charitable gifts to Israel and to pro-Israel charities in the USA – after all, if that money did not go to Israel it would instead benefit the US economy. One cannot but wonder whether he has ever expressed similar animus toward American citizens of the Catholic faith contributing to the Vatican.

Perhaps most confusing, he even lumps into his astronomic estimate the aid that the USA has given to Egypt (c. $117 billion) and to Jordan (c. $22 billion) in return for peace treaties with Israel. Aside from the obvious fact that this USA money went to Egypt and Jordan but not to Israel, it is also quite rational to suggest that our government wisely saw these treaties as foundation blocks of peace in the Middle East, and therefore well worth the investment. In short, Stauffer pulls into his calculus anything and everything that he can possibly think of to inflate the numbers. Contrary to the popular adage, he does not throw in everything but the kitchen sink, he tosses that in too.

Essays of a similar ilk, by Stephen Zunes, Scott McConnel, and various writers for the transparently anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), have employed similar mendacious and misleading tactics to exponentially inflate the cost of American support for Israel and condemn the US-Israel special relationship as a liability for the USA.

More detailed rebuttals of these “kitchen sink” arguments can be found here, here, and here; but the critique summarized above demonstrates the sheer irrationality and galactic exaggerations of the “kitchen sink” approach to assessing US aid to Israel.The most comprehensive condemnation of the US government’s support for Israel comes from the article and book by Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer, who insist that “Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support which “dwarfs that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion.”A long list of distinguished scholars, commentators, journalists, congressmen and government representatives have discredited Walt and Mearsheimer, highlighting their egregiously inflated numbers, incorrect history, frequent decontextualization of quotes and facts, and misrepresentation of the underlying dynamics of the Arab-Israel conflict. Moreover, Walt and Mearsheimer stooped to such unprofessional depths as to draw some of their “facts” from neo-Nazi and other anti-Israel hate websites. Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government distanced itself from the paper, and insisted that its logo be removed from all publications of the article, despite the fact that Steven Walt is a professor there. Consensus among critics is that the paper utterly fails to meet academic standards and promotes anti-Semitic myths.

It is correct to state that Israel was for many years after 1973 the largest individual recipient of direct U.S. aid. But for many of those years Egypt came in as a very close second; and after the onset of US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American-supported governments of these two countries each received tens of billions more annual aid than Israel. Iraq alone has received in excess of $58 billion since 2003 for reconstruction and “state building.” So if there is a risk of American largesse “bankrupting” the USA, why pick on Israel?

US military support worldwide totaled 630 billion in 2008, approached 800 billion in 2009, and continues to rise. Let’s keep in mind that these hundreds of billions spent on maintaining military bases and deploying troops in Europe and the Far East are US aid to the countries that host our bases. Were the USA to withraw these military deployments, the host countries would need to shoulder more of the burden for their own defense. The billions that the US spends on our military presence in the world free those same billions in the host countries’ economies for their own domestic use.

How then can anyone argue that US aid to Israel “dwarfs” American aid to other countries when the USA spends from three to five times that amount in Iraq, and when US aid annually to Israel is less than one-half of one percent (0.5%) of American total military and other aid world-wide? Why do acclaimed scholars and other widely respected professionals need to “throw in the kitchen sink?” Why do they need to make spurious and demonstrably false claims about the amount of American aid? They lie because the truth does not support their agenda.

Walt and Mearsheimer are explicit about their agenda in their paper and their book: they seek to demonstrate that the American government is in the grip of a Zionist conspiracy, the head of which is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and evidence for which is the enormous amount of US aid to Israel; hence their need to insist that US aid to Israel dwarfs the aid given to any other state. Since the real numbers are too small to support such an extreme proposition, Walt and Mearsheimer must resort to culling their “facts” from Neo-Nazi Jew-hatred websites. Since the benefits to the USA are so great that the actual aid dollars are more than justified, then these erstwhile scholars and others of their ilk must fabricate astronomic numbers, and minimize or deny the benefits of this aid to the USA.

The purpose of all of these “kitchen sink” exercises is obvious: discredit Israel and Israel’s supporters by making Israel look like a liability rather than an asset and thus justify anti-Israel animus, legitimize hatred of Israel, and influence governments and individuals to reduce or eliminate support for Israel. This type of mendacity is akin to Holocaust denial and Israel denial. All three turn history upside down, distort reality, and deny the patently undeniable with palpable lies and transparent fabrications. The ultimate goal of all three is support for those forces seeking Israel’s destruction.

In sharing this ultimate goal with Hamas, Hezbollah, a dozen other genocidal Muslim terrorist organizations, and Iran, the purveyors of the “kitchen sink” assessment of US aid to Israel have joined the ranks of the 21st century’s version of Hitler’s little helpers.T

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is cutting off funding for the United Nations cultural agency because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership, a move that could cost the agency a fifth of its budget.

The U.S. and other opponents of the vote had warned that granting the Palestinian request for membership at Unesco could harm renewed Mideast peace efforts. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday's vote triggered a long-standing congressional restriction on funding to U.N. bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. Ms. Nuland said Unesco's decision was "regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace" between Israelis and Palestinians. She said the U.S. would refrain from making a $60 million payment it planned to make in November, but the U.S. would maintain membership in the body.

The Palestinians want full membership in the U.N., but Israel opposes the bid. The U.S. says it would veto a vote in the Security Council Palestine became a full member of the United Nations's cultural agency on Monday amid huge cheers after delegates approved the membership in a vote of 107-14 with 52 abstentions. Eighty-one votes were needed for approval in a hall with 173 Unesco member delegations present.

"Long Live Palestine!" shouted one delegate, in French, at the unusually tense and dramatic meeting of Unesco's General Conference.

Lawmakers in the U.S., which provides about 22% of funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, had threatened to halt some of the funding if Palestinian membership was approved.

The U.N. agency protects historic heritage sites and works to improve world literacy and cultural understanding, but it also has come under criticism in the past as a forum for anti-Israel sentiment. The U.S. pulled out of Unesco under President Ronald Reagan but rejoined under President George W. Bush.

Monday's vote is a symbolic breakthrough but it alone won't make Palestine into a state. The issue of borders of an eventual Palestinian state, security troubles and other disputes that have thwarted Middle East peace for decades remain unresolved.

Palestinian officials are seeking full membership in the U.N., but that effort is still under examination and the U.S. has said it will veto it unless there is a peace deal with Israel. Given that, the Palestinians separately sought membership at Paris-based Unesco and other U.N. bodies. Monday's vote is definitive. The membership formally takes effect when Palestine signs Unesco's founding charter. The U.S. ambassador to Unesco, David Killion, said after Monday's vote that it would "complicate" U.S. efforts to support the agency. The U.S. voted against the measure.

Israel's ambassador to Unesco, Nimrod Barkan, called the vote a tragedy.

"Unesco deals in science, not science fiction. They forced on Unesco a political subject out of its competence. They've forced a drastic cut in contributions to the organization," he said.

Existing U.S. law can bar Washington from funding any U.N. body that accepts members that don't have the "internationally recognized attributes of statehood." That requirement is generally interpreted to mean U.N. membership.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week called Unesco's deliberation "inexplicable," saying discussion of Palestinian membership in international organizations couldn't replace negotiations with Israel as a fast-track toward Palestinian independence.

Ghasan Khatib, spokesman for the Palestinian government in the West Bank urged the U.S. to keep Unesco funding.

He called it "a vote of confidence from the international community."

"We look at this vote as especially important because part of our battle with the Israeli occupation is about the occupation attempts to erase the Palestinian history or Judaizing it. The Unesco vote will help us to maintain the Palestinian traditional heritage, " he said

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is cutting off funding for the United Nations cultural agency because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership, a move that could cost the agency a fifth of its budget.

Analyst Reva Bhalla explains the Jordanian calculation to move toward greater engagement with Palestinian group Hamas. Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.Related Links• The Geopolitics of the Palestinians• Jordan’s King Dismisses his CabinetHamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal is expected to make an official visit to Jordan in the coming days to meet with King Abdullah II. An important shift is taking place in Jordan as the country’s leaders are starting to take a much more proactive stance in trying to prevent the backlash of the Arab Spring in countries like Syria and Egypt from threatening the Hashemite Kingdom’s hold on power. Though the Jordanian government lives in deep tension with its majority Palestinian population, part of the evolving Jordanian strategy entails making very public steps to improve its relationship with Hamas.

Over the past several weeks, there have been several movements in Jordan that have been very much out of character for the Hashemite regime, yet have been very revealing of how Jordan is viewing the growing uncertainties in its neighborhood. Jordan is preparing for a visit by Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, who is currently based in Damascus, to make an official visit to Amman along with Qatar’s crown prince after Eid al-Adha. In setting the mood for the upcoming visit, Jordanian Prime Minister Awn al-Khasawneh said Oct. 31 that the government’s decision in 1999 to expel Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, was a “constitutional and political mistake.”

The Jordanian authorities have a fundamental crisis with the Palestinians. The country’s Hashemite rulers were transplanted from the Arabian Peninsula to rule over a territory that is now predominantly inhabited by Palestinians. Jordan thus views groups like Hamas and any bid for Palestinian statehood as a direct threat to the sustainability of the Hashemite monarchy. This is why Jordan has a very healthy relationship with Israel, which shares common cause with the Jordanian government in keeping the Palestinians contained. That said, Jordan does place limits on its relationship with Israel, as it did in 1997, when Jordan saved Meshaal from an Israeli assassination attempt in Amman. Jordan sees the need to continue to engage Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

On the domestic front, Jordan has not been immune to demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring. Most of the demonstrations have been led by the political arm of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood called the Islamic Action Front. But these demonstrations have been markedly different from those taking place in neighboring Arab countries. Jordan has a much more open relationship with its opposition, and the demonstrations have been pretty contained. The opposition in Jordan is very aware of its limits and is not calling for complete regime change. Still, the government does not feel like it has completely dodged the bullet, and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood has been pushing in its negotiations with the government to welcome Hamas back to Amman.

Jordan is also looking nervously at the political transition taking place in Egypt. Though Jordan is happy to see the military regime in Egypt maintain control, they can see that the government in Cairo will increasingly have its hands full in trying to contain its domestic opposition while trying to keep Hamas hemmed in in Gaza.

Then there is the situation in Syria, where President Bashar al Assad’s political problems are growing. A great deal of tension exists between Jordan and the Syrian regime, which is allied with Iran. But Jordan has also relied on Syria for a long time to play its part in keeping Hamas in check. A lot of Hamas’ finances, for example, run through Hamas’ politburo, which moved to Damascus in 2001. Now that the Syrian regime is distracted, Jordan is growing concerned about Egypt’s and Syria’s abilities to keep Hamas in check and is now trying to take matters into its own hands. Jordan also shares an interest with Egypt in trying to distance Hamas from Iran’s orbit of influence and deny Iran a strong foothold in the Levant. On the home front, Jordan’s government can also use improving ties with Hamas to gain credibility with the country’s Islamist opposition.But Hamas also comes with a lot of baggage. Though Jordan and Israel continue to cooperate very closely, Jordan does not necessarily want to be held responsible by Israel for Hamas’ militant actions. Jordan and Israel also do not want to give Hamas an opportunity to gain a strong foothold in Fatah-controlled West Bank, from which it could threaten both Jordan and Israel. Still, Jordan may be contemplating the old adage of “keeping friends close and enemies closer” in making these positive gestures toward Hamas.

Hamas is also weighing the merits of warming ties with Jordan. The group understands that Jordan’s intelligence and security apparatus works in very tight coordination with Israel and the United States and will be doing whatever it can to clamp down on Hamas’ movements. Hamas is looking for a new home, and the Jordanian government may be seriously looking at the prospect of laying out the welcome mat for Hamas for its own strategic interests.

At least two Katyusha rockets were reportedly launched from southern Lebanon intoIsrael shortly after midnight on Monday, prompting retaliatory Israeli shelling. Sofar, the situation appears to be contained, but the rocket fire is a reminder of oneof several options both Syria and Iran could have at their disposal to counterrising regional pressure.

The rocket fire into Israel was claimed Tuesday by a group calling itself the SheikhAbdullah al-Azzam Brigades that allegedly operates out of Palestinian refugee campsin Lebanon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for that attack. TheIDF is apparently in agreement with this assessment. Israeli military radio, citingarmy officials, said that the rocket fire was likely the work of a small Palestinianor Islamist group rather than Hezbollah, while maintaining that it holds theLebanese government responsible for the attack. Israeli retaliatory fire was alsoreportedly directed at open fields and not Hezbollah targets. No follow on rocketattacks have occurred so far. Israel also seems interested in avoiding anescalation, with Israeli military officials stressing that response to the rocketfire would be "limited and selective."

This incident cannot be viewed in isolation. First, it’s important to keep in mindthat while a number of jihadist militants do mill about this part of the region andcould act independently, Lebanon has a very murky militant landscape that is heavilyutilized by Syrian intelligence. In fact, STRATFOR has received a number ofindications in recent weeks that Syrian intelligence has been boosting its presencein major Palestinian camps in Lebanon with the intent of creating a security crisisin the region. Even threatening such a crisis, Syria hopes, could distract from theregime’s crackdown at home and at the same time, compel Syria’s adversaries tonegotiate a truce with Damascus to avoid a wider regional conflict. There’s noguarantee that such a plan would even work, and the recent rocket fire out ofLebanon would constitute a pretty weak response if Syria actually had a hand in it.Still, we are aware that Syria is in the process of ramping up at least some of itsmilitant assets in Lebanon and are thus on the watch for further militant activityemanating from these camps.

This puts Hezbollah in quite the dilemma. Hezbollah is not looking for a conflictwith Israel and, in fact, its leadership is under a lot of stress in trying tomanage its affairs in Lebanon while its allies in the Syrian regime remain incrisis. At the same time, a covert war appears to be heating up in the region withseveral signs of possible sabotage attacks coming to light in recent days. Firstthere was a Nov. 15 blast at an IRGC ballistic missile complex near Tehran. Andthen, most recently, there were reports of a Nov. 28 explosion in Isfahan. Iranianmedia later retracted the report on the Isfahan explosion, but the alleged explosiontook place in a city with numerous sites related to both Iran's ballistic missileand nuclear programs -- as well as a number of military installations.

With the U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq by the end of December and Iran using itsfoothold in Iraq to spread its influence in the wider region, a lot of differentstakeholders in the region are looking for ways to keep Iran in check.

As we are watching for how Iran responds to these incidents, we will be keeping anespecially close eye on southern Lebanon. Syria and Iran may have a mutual interestin activating militant proxies to help counter this rise in regional pressure, butso far the response has been pretty mild and Hezbollah appears very reluctant to getembroiled in a conflict with Israel at this point in time. Then again, it’s alsostill very early in the game.More Videos - http://www.stratfor.com/theme/video_dispatch

A Letter from an Israeli Reserve Soldier by Aron AdlerOur young country, built from the ashes of the Holocaust, does not turn its back on humanity.

My name is Aron Adler. I am 25 years old, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Efrat, Israel. Though very busy, I don't view my life as unusual. Most of the time, I am just another Israeli citizen. During the day I work as a paramedic in Magen David Adom, Israel's national EMS service. At night, I'm in my first year of law school. I got married this October and am starting a new chapter of life together with my wonderful wife Shulamit.

A few weeks out of every year, I'm called up to the Israeli army to do my reserve duty. I serve as a paramedic in an IDF paratrooper unit. My squad is made up of others like me; people living normal lives who step up to serve when responsibility calls. The oldest in my squad is 58, a father of four girls and grandfather of two; there are two bankers, one engineer, a holistic healer, and my 24-year-old commander who is still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Most of the year we are just normal people living our lives, but for 15-20 days each year we are soldiers on the front lines preparing for a war that we hope we never have to fight.

This year, our reserve unit was stationed on the border between Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip in an area called "Kerem Shalom." Above and beyond the "typical" things for which we train – war, terrorism, border infiltration, etc., this year we were confronted by a new challenge. Several years ago, a trend started of African refugees crossing the Egyptian border from Sinai into Israel to seek asylum from the atrocities in Darfur. What started out as a small number of men, women and children fleeing from the machetes of the Janjaweed and violent fundamentalists to seek a better life elsewhere, turned into an organized industry of human trafficking. In return for huge sums of money, sometimes entire life savings paid to Bedouin "guides," these refugees are promised to be transported from Sudan, Eritrea and other African countries through Egypt and the Sinai desert, into the safe haven of Israel.

We increasingly hear horror stories of the atrocities these refugees suffer on their way to freedom. They are subject to, and victims of extortion, rape, murder and even organ theft, their bodies left to rot in the desert. Then, if lucky, after surviving this gruesome experience whose prize is freedom, when only a barbed wire fence separates them from Israel and their goal, they must go through the final death run and try to evade the bullets of the Egyptian soldiers stationed along the border. Egypt's soldiers are ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross the border OUT of Egypt and into Israel. It's an almost nightly event.

For those who finally get across the border, the first people they encounter are Israeli soldiers, people like me and those in my unit, who are tasked with a primary mission of defending the lives of the Israeli people. On one side of the border soldiers shoot to kill. On the other side, they know they will be treated with more respect than in any of the countries they crossed to get to this point.

Related Article: Our Soldiers

The region where it all happens is highly sensitive and risky from a security point of view, an area stricken with terror at every turn. It's just a few miles south of the place where Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. And yet the Israeli soldiers who are confronted with these refugees do it not with rifles aimed at them, but with a helping hand and an open heart. The refugees are taken to a nearby IDF base, given clean clothes, a hot drink, food and medical attention. They are finally safe.

Even though I live in Israel and am aware through media reports of the events that take place on the Egyptian border, I never understood the intensity and complexity of the scenario until I experienced it myself.

In the course of the past few nights, I have witnessed much. At 9 p.m. last night, the first reports came in of gunfire heard from the Egyptian border. Minutes later, IDF scouts spotted small groups of people trying to get across the fence. In the period of about one hour, we picked up 13 men - cold, barefoot, dehydrated - some wearing nothing except underpants. Their bodies were covered with lacerations and other wounds. We gathered them in a room, gave them blankets, tea and treated their wounds. I don't speak a word of their language, but the look on their faces said it all and reminded me once again why I am so proud to be a Jew and an Israeli. Sadly, it was later determined that the gunshots we heard were deadly, killing three others fleeing for their lives.

During the 350 days a year when I am not on active duty, when I am just another man trying to get by, the people tasked with doing this amazing job, this amazing deed, the people witnessing these events, are mostly young Israeli soldiers just out of high school, serving their compulsory time in the IDF, some only 18 years old.

The refugees flooding into Israel are a heavy burden on our small country. More than 100,000 refugees have fled this way, and hundreds more cross the border every month. The social, economic and humanitarian issues created by this influx of refugees are immense. There are serious security consequences for Israel as well. This influx of African refugees poses a crisis for Israel. Israel has yet to come up with the solutions required to deal with this crisis effectively, balancing its' sensitive social, economic and security issues, at the same time striving to care for the refugees.

I don't have the answers to these complex problems which desperately need to be resolved. I'm not writing these words with the intention of taking a political position or a tactical stand on the issue.

I am writing to tell you and the entire world what's really happening down here on the Egyptian/Israeli border. And to tell you that despite all the serious problems created by this national crisis, these refugees have no reason to fear us. Because they know, as the entire world needs to know, that Israel has not shut its eyes to their suffering and pain. Israel has not looked the other way. The State of Israel has put politics aside to take the ethical and humane path as it has so often done before, in every instance of human suffering and natural disasters around the globe. We Jews know only too well about suffering and pain. The Jewish people have been there. We have been the refugees and the persecuted so many times, over thousands of years, all over the world.

Today, when African refugees flood our borders in search of freedom and better lives, and some for fear of their lives, it is particularly noteworthy how Israel deals with them, despite the enormous strain it puts on our country on so many levels.

Our young and thriving Jewish people and country, built from the ashes of the Holocaust, do not turn their backs on humanity. Though I already knew that, this week I once again experienced it firsthand. I am overwhelmed with emotion and immensely proud to be a member of this nation.

With love of Israel,Aron Adler, writing from the Israel/Gaza/Egyptian border

If one were to believe the mainstream American media one would think Israeli's love Brock. WE have Fareed Zakaria asking putting every Jewish official on the spot asking them if they think his friend and confidante Brock is doing "everything possible" to protect Israel. Of course they are loathe to tell the truth on American TV. Zakaria knows this.

Antyhing for the beloved One of the beloved Democrat party it seems. Contrary to the certainly twisted reports we get in MSM:

****Israeli officials: Obama too soft on Iran

Top government officials laud France, UK, but tell Ynet White House policy with regards to Iranian nuclear program 'hesitant'

"The administration is still not acting in full force to impose significant sanctions against Tehran," one of the officials told Ynet Sunday night.

On the other hand, officials in Jerusalem lauded French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron. "France and the UK have begun to act determinedly, while Obama's administration has yet to formulate a policy that is sufficiently severe," another official said.****

On Friday, December 9, presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was interviewed on cable TV’s The Jewish Channel, where he made the unexpected comment that the Palestinians are an invented people with no apparent right to their own state. His remarks, summarized in the Washington Post, were promptly condemned; but is he correct?

Let’s recall that Mr. Gingrich has an MA and PhD in History from Tulane University. In fact, history is quite clear on this issue. Mr. Gingrich is correct, and the first to say so was Daniel Pipes.

The name “Palestine” derives from the Philistines, who originated from the Eastern Mediterranean (perhaps Greece or Crete) and invaded the region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C. Related to the Bronze Age Greeks, they spoke a language akin to Mycenaean Greek. Their area of habitation on the Eastern Mediterranean littoral became known as “Philistia.”

When Romans arrived a thousand years later they corrupted “Philistia” to “Palestina,” from whence “Palestine.” Six hundred years later, the Arab invaders corrupted “Palestina” to “Falastin.”

Throughout all subsequent history there was never a nation of “Palestine,” never a people known as the “Palestinians,” nor any notion of “historic Palestine.” The region remained under successive foreign rulers, from the Umayyads and Abbasids and Ayyubids to the Fatimids, Ottomans and British. During these millennia the term “Falastin” referred to an undefined geographical region, much like “Appalachia” or “the great Southwest” in modern U.S. geography.

In 1695 a Dutch orientalist, Hadrian Reland, conducted a geographical survey of the region. He found that none of the known settlements, ancient or contemporary, bore Arabic names. Most names were Hebrew, Greek, or Latin in origin. Moreover, the land was almost empty of inhabitants, desolate, the few towns (Jerusalem, Acre, Safed, Jaffa, Tiberius and Gaza) inhabited mostly by Christians and Jews, with Muslims present only in very small number, mostly Bedouin in the hinterland.

His book, Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata (Utrecht, 1714), offers no evidence for a “Palestinian people,” “Palestinian heritage,” “Palestinian nation” or “Palestinian homeland” in ancient times; and it provides a powerful argument against the outrageous and transparently false assertions by some modern Arab spokespersons that what most people know to be Jewish history is in fact “Palestinian” history. Today’s defenders of the “Palestinian cause” are reduced to stealing Jewish history and heritage precisely because the so-called “Palestinians” have none of their own.Today’s “Palestinians” are indeed an invented people. But how did they get invented? Arabs themselves answer that question for us.

The term “Palestine” was given a political meaning for the first time in history by the British after World War I, when they took the region from the Turks and termed it “British Mandatory Palestine.” At that time (1920) Arab political and intellectual leaders spoke out vehemently against the creation of this new “Palestine” because the region was, in their minds, inextricably connected to Syria. The Arabs of the area had their own designation for the region: Balad esh-Sham (the province of Damascus), or as-Suriya al-Janubiya (southern Syria). In fact, Arab nationalists protested the use of the term “Palestine” because for them “Palestine” was really southern Syria. Even the most vitriolic and vociferous Arab nationalist, the Hajj Amin el-Husseini, opposed creating “Palestine” separate from Syria. For documentation see Marie Syrkin’s “Palestinian Nationalism: Its Development and Goal,” in Curtis, Michael, Neyer, Joseph, Waxman, Chaim, and Pollack, Allen, The Palestinians: People, History, Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 200.

The General Syrian Congress of 1919 stressed an exclusively Syrian identity for the Arabs of “southern Syria”: “We ask that there should be no separation of the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine . . .” (Ibid, Syrkin, Supra). George Antonius, the father of modern Arab nationalist history, documented in The Arab Awakening (1938. P. 312) the upheaval created among the Arabs of “Greater Syria” and Iraq as they flocked to the streets of Syrian cities, including Jerusalem, in armed uprisings to protest the British imposition of a separate political entity known as “Palestine,” carved out of what was traditionally a part of Syria.

Once France conquered Syria in 1920, leaders in “southern Syria” changed their tune. Arab allegiances were to Damascus, not to France. With the French controlling Syria, the ideaof “Palestine” as a separate Muslim and Arab state began to take shape, and Palestinian leaders, most prominently el-Husseini, began a nationalist movement for the Arabs of British Mandatory Palestine, modeled after and in opposition to Zionism. Palestinian national identity was invented in 1920, and midwifed by Zionism!

Even toward the end of the Mandate period, almost 30 years later, there was still opposition to the concept of a separate political entity known as “Palestine” among leading Arab spokespersons. Philip Hitti, historian and most eloquent spokesman for the Arab cause, testified to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946: “Sir, there is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.”

In early 1947, when the UN was exploring the possibility of the partition of British Mandatory Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, various Arab political and academicspokespersons vociferously protested because, they argued, the region was really a part of southern Syria. No such people as “Palestinians” had ever existed, so it would be an injustice to Syria to create a “Palestine” ex nihilo at the expense of Syria.

Akhmed Shukairi, Saudi ambassador to the UN, asserted in 1956, eight years after the birth of the State of Israel, that “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria” (and cf. Supra, Syrkin, p. 201). As late as March 8, 1974, Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad asserted on Radio Damascus that: “… Palestine is not only a part of our Arab homeland, but a basic part of southern Syria.” During the nineteen years from 1948 to the Six-Day War (June, 1967), all that remained of the territory initially set aside for the Arabs of British Mandatory Palestine was the West Bank, under illegal Jordanian sovereignty, and the Gaza Strip, under illegal Egyptian rule. Never during these nineteen years did any Arab leader argue for the right of national self-determination for the Arabs of these territories.

Even Yasser Arafat, until 1967, used the term “Palestinians” to refer only to the Arabs who lived under, or had fled from, Israeli sovereignty; and the term “Palestine” to refer only to Israel in its pre-1967 borders. In the PLO’s original founding Charter, Article 24 states: “…(the PLO).. does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the west Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area.” For Arafat in 1964, “Palestine” was not the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, which after 1948 belonged to other Arab states. The only “homeland” for the PLO in 1964 was the State of Israel. However, after the Six- Day War, thanks to Arafat’s mentoring by the Soviets, the PLO revised its Charter on July 17, 1968, to remove the language of Article 24, thereby newly asserting a “Palestinian” claim of sovereignty to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

After the Six-Day War, Arab leaders reframed the conflict. Formerly, Israel was the “David” and the Arab world the “Goliath.” Now Israel was the gargantuan illegal occupier and the “Palestinians” were the weak, hapless, homeless, hopeless “oppressed people” and “victims of colonialism.” But this reframing required, created as it was ex nihilo, an “historic Palestine” and an ancient “Palestinian people” who had lived in their “homeland” from “time immemorial,” who could trace their “heritage” back to the Canaanites, who were driven out by the evil Zionists, and who had the inalienable right granted by international law and universal justice to use terror to reclaim their national identity.

That this was a political confection was revealed by Zahir Muhse’in, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, in a March 31, 1977 interview with British journalist James Dorsey in the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw:

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.Dorsey’s original interview is not available online, but has been quoted here, here, and here.

In addition to verifying that the “Palestinians” are an invented people, Muhse’in also tells us why they were invented: “Only for political and tactical reasons…to oppose Zionism.”

The lie of the “Palestinian people,” invented to justify the destruction of Israel, is exposed by their own leaders, and by the fact that, in absence of their own, they must steal Jewish history. Josef Goebbels’ technique of repeating the same lie until it is believed turned this lie into erstwhile “fact,” until Gingrich.Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Israel, Isaac and the Return of Human Sacrifice Why have liberal Westerners turned their backs on the Jewish state?

By DAVID MAMET As Iran races toward the bomb, many observers seem to think the greater threat is the possibility that Israel might act against its nuclear program. Which raises the question: What should it mean if, God forbid, militant Islam through force of arms, and with the supine permission of the West, succeeds in the destruction of the Jewish State?

1) That the Jewish People would no longer have their ancestral home;

2) That they should have no home.

At the Versailles Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson stated as an evident moral proposition that each people should have the right to national self-determination. The West, thereafter, fought not for empire, nor national expansion, but in self-defense, or in defense of this proposition. But, for the Jewish State, the Liberal West puts the proposition aside.

Since its foundation Israel has turned the other cheek. Eric Hoffer wrote that Israel is the only country the world expects to act like Christians. Some Jews say that the Arabs have a better public relations apparatus. They do not need one. For the Liberal West does not need convincing. It is thrilled merely to accept an excuse to rescind what it regards as a colossal error.

The Liberal West has, for decades, indulged itself in an orgy of self-flagellation. We have enjoyed comfort and security, but these, in the absence of gratitude and patriotism, cause insecurity. This attempted cure for insecurity can be seen in protestations of our worthlessness, and the indictment of private property.

But no one in the affluent West and no one among the various protesters of various supposed injustices is prepared to act in accordance with his protestations. The opponent of "The Corporation" is still going to use the iPhone which permits him to mass with his like. The celebrities acting out at Occupy meetings will still invest their surplus capital, and the supposed champion of the dispossessed in the Levant will not only scoff at American Indian claims to land he has come to understand as his—he will lobby the City Council to have the homeless shelter built anywhere but on his block.

The brave preceptors who would like to end Poverty, War, Exploitation, Colonialism, Inequality and so on, stop at the proclamation. How may they synchronize their wise fervor with their inaction?

How may they still the resultant anxiety? The Left's answer is the oldest in the world: by appeal to The Gods. But how may The Gods be appeased? The immemorial answer is: By human sacrifice.

What is the essence of the Torah? It is not the Ten Commandments, these were known, and the practice of most aspired to by every civilization. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner teaches they are merely a Calling Card; to wit: "remember me . . . ?"

The essence of the Torah is the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac. The God of Hosts spoke to Abraham, as the various desert gods had spoken to the nomads for thousands of years: "If you wish me to relieve your anxiety, give me the most precious thing you have."

So God's call to Abraham was neither unusual nor, perhaps, unexpected. God had told Abraham to leave his people and his home, and go to the place which God would point out to him. And God told Abraham to take his son up the mountain and kill him, as humans had done for tens of thousands of years.

Now, however, for the first time in history, the narrative changed. The sacrifice, Isaac, spoke back. He asked his father, "Where is the Goat we are to sacrifice?" This was the voice of conscience, and Abraham's hand, as it descended with the knife, was stayed. This was the Birth of the West, and the birth of the West's burden, which is conscience.

Previously the anxiety and fear attendant upon all human life was understood as Fear of the Gods, and dealt with by propitiation, which is to say by sacrifice. Now, however, the human burden was not to give The Gods what one imagined, in one's fear, that they might want, but do, in conscience, those things one understood God to require.

In abandonment of the state of Israel, the West reverts to pagan sacrifice, once again, making a burnt offering not of that which one possesses, but of that which is another's. As Realpolitik, the Liberal West's anti-Semitism can be understood as like Chamberlain's offering of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, a sop thrown to terrorism. On the level of conscience, it is a renewal of the debate on human sacrifice.

like Chamberlain's offering of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, a sop thrown to terrorism.

A sop thrown to terrorism. Since the author is a screenwriter, I cant but think that this is some double bind screenplay joke that I dont understand. But its so appropriately ironic, because the exact same argument can be used against Israel.

From the first link I pasted above :

INT:Prof Said, do the Zionists have any historical claim to the lands of Israel ?ES:Of course. But I would not say that the Jewish claim is the only claim or the main claim. It is A claim among many others. Certainly the Arabs have a much greater claim because they have had a longer history of actual residence in Palestine than the Jews did. If you look at the history of Palestine, there has been some very interesting work done by Biblical archeologists you will see that the period of actual „Israelite“ dominance in Palestine amounts to about 200 to 250 years.. There were also jebusites, kanaanites, philistines and many other people in Palestine, at the time and before and after. And to isolate one of them and say THATS the real owner of the land, I mean that is fundamentalism.

With the dissolution of the Austro Hungarian empire many ethnical groups vanished, in the sense they suddenly became parts of different national identities. One of the big examples of this are the Sudeten Germans, the other, for example are the Hungarians which to this day have half a million of „their own“ living in Slovakia, which amounts to 10% of the entire population.

In the 30ies there were 3.5 million Sudeten Germans living in Czechoslovakia, they comprised little over 35% o the entire ethnic spectre (which as a state was born in 1918, specifically at the Treaty of Versailles). „Ethnic Germans“ mostly lived in a region called Bohemia, before AH in the Holy Roman empire since the early part of 12th century. Almost a 1000 years. But Sudetenland was given to Czechoslovakia, or better yet, was acknowledged AS part of Czchekoslovakia in the afore mentioned peace conference in Paris. So ethnic Germans were now living in Czechoslovakia.

From the misleading „historical“ prism – which doesnt include anything „historic“ at all, just collected and modified data, to support a claim – that usually the pro-Israel people like to use so much with the conflict, isnt this offering from Chamberlain to Hitler not only completly in tune with „historic neccesity“ but also completely justified ?

With the dissolution of the Austro Hungarian empire many ethnical groups vanished, in the sense they suddenly became parts of different national identities. One of the big examples of this are the Sudeten Germans, the other, for example are the Hungarians which to this day have half a million of „their own“ living in Slovakia, which amounts to 10% of the entire population.

I'm still having trouble grasping the logic that Hitler and Chamberlain were right?!?

I'm still having trouble grasping the logic that multi-ethnic national concepts of Europe are what the Arabs have in mind for the Jews, or the Coptic Christians in Egypt or the Christians in Iraq, or the non-Muslims pretty much anywhere in the Arab world.

I'm still trying to figure out the point behind the reference to the Holy Roman Empire.

"INT:Prof Said, do the Zionists have any historical claim to the lands of Israel ?ES: Of course. But I would not say that the Jewish claim is the only claim or the main claim. It is A claim among many others. Certainly the Arabs have a much greater claim because they have had a longer history of actual residence in Palestine than the Jews did. (BULLSH*T) If you look at the history of Palestine, there has been some very interesting work done by Biblical archeologists you will see that the period of actual „Israelite“ dominance in Palestine amounts to about 200 to 250 years. (OH REALLY?) There were also jebusites, kanaanites, philistines and many other people in Palestine, at the time and before and after. And to isolate one of them and say THATS the real owner of the land, I mean that is fundamentalism."

Where are these other groups now? They have ceased to exist for thousands of years. Only the Jews remain, as we have for these thousands of years. We have been continuously longer in Israel than anyone else. Why is Prof. Said, or anyone else for that matter, not upset at division of ethnic groups by the boundaries of Lebanon? Syria? Iraq?

Fundamentalism?!? Look at the tolerance and diversity in Israel and compare it that that of its neighbors. How can such accusations be taken seriously?

Really strange how Chomsky condemns America and Israel, and yet people from around the world flee to these countries. Don't they know how Chomsky is held in such high regard by the leftist academic indoctrination industrial complex? Why would they ignore his brilliance and flee from communist and jihadist places to horrible places where free markets and human rights hold a central role?

"jebusites, kanaanites, philistines and many other people in Palestine"

Oh and by the way. None of these ancient peoples as a group have surivived for *thousands* of years! They don't exist anymore. So what is this guy talking about they also have a right to the land?

Jews are one of the few groups people who have existed in around 1400 BC to now with an common persistant heritage. Who else is older? Egyptians. Yes Aborigines, I think.

Perhaps some tribes in Africa? I don't know who else. There were probably forunners of the Greek city states. Perhaps one could make a case for Persia or Babylonian forerunners. Probably early "Chinese" forerunners.

Dont you think the logic that somehow thinkers that critisize a certain country should go somewhere more akin to what they are saying, is a bit childish? The very role of a philosopher, thinker is to see holes and critique. If Chomsky or anyone else for that matter says something against liberal capitalism, or violations of freedom of press or anything of that sort, doesnt mean he doesnt WANT to live in the USA. Of course not, ironically, the fact that most of the intellectual think tank (For now at least) operates within the USA is because the USA still is the most prosperous area in that regard, as far as academia and rights of speech goes.

Just from the suggested videos alone you could look at some videos where Chomsky razes Obama to the ground, and the whole „ethos“ or better yet, „pathos“ of the American Left. Chomsky is anything but, what you call a leftist liberal. But still, how does that imply the logic of „if you dont like it here go somewhere else ?“

But all in all, ive been to one of his discussions, live. He is a very approachable dude, incredibly systematic and will hear anyone out, so I urge you, if you think you have all the answers, please, go to one of his talks, wait for the Q and A and show him wrong infront of everyone there and the world, if the event will be filmed. Better come well prepared.

Every single event in known history, that brought the society to a higher plain in the dialectic of progress, found its roots in the dissident thinkers, and the ones who constantly critisized the established order. And most of the time were even forced to live elsewhere because of it. The rights and liberties you have in the USA and are so damn proud of, have been settled on blood, tears and more blood. And those people who ignited their roots, those who dared to think otherwise, usually paid with their life for it.

As pertaining the video you linked...no doubt a touching one...but course there are charming stories everywhere, no area of man can simply be divided to evil and good. There are stories of evil and stories of good everywhere, and we all know very well you can look them up on the internet. But lets stick with the Said quote that TV as a medium is a distorted one, and leave this type of „propaganda“ out of it

what part of the Said video you think wasnt profound ?

And I find it beneath you to operate constantly within this political tone. Fraud here, fraud there. Ad hominem arguments are a serious logical phallacy. At least honor the dead, even if you dissagree with them.

Thats the politics show. „We dont like that bloke, get up dirt on him so he looses credibility.“ Doesnt work like that. Is everything politics to you ?

@Marc

Marc. Im sure you can read between the lines.

It was an argumentative example. The author GM posted, claimed that somehow liberal Wests tactic in the middle east is akin to the Chamberlanian move to give to the Germans what wasnt theirs to appease the general state of conflict.

I then explained the Sudetenland case, that in fact the opposite holds true, that if you use the logic that the Jews have history at their backs and claims to Israel, Hitlers claim to Sudetenland was completely legitimate.

The holy roman empire comment was also aimed at this, since Sudeten Germans were living in Bohemia nearly 1000 years, (like the Jews argument – been living there longer) since and throughout the Empire, and it is on this logic that Hitler claimed it as German, and also annexed Austria. But obviously, violated all sorts of international rights, constitutions, state sovereignty, etc. and that is the whole point.

The fact today is, we share the world. There are certain things we try to conform to, to make living easier for everyone.

You are equating all Arabs with their form of islamic fundamentalism „rebelion“. Which is only a part of the revolt. But the most vocal one for sure. You have all sorts of secular, less drastic and passive forms of expression, which btw Chomsky talks a whole lot about. You have the workers movement, the freedom of women movement, the democratic movement, the student movement, etc. Saying what a section of Arabs have in mind for Jews to conclude that indeed all arabic world shares the notion is ridiculous, no ? Just like Im sure you wouldnt claim that indeed all rednecks are stupid, and since rednecks live in America, all Americans are stupid rednecks.

Also, calling anyone who attacks the pro Jewish argument an anti Semite is absurd. There are so many levels to this problem, calling anyone names is basically just a way out. The „point and tell“ way out.

My argument is aimed solely at the logic with which you, and others of course, constantly use to base Israels „right“ to the land, which is through historic claims.

THE PROBLEM CANNOT BE SOLVED ON THAT CLAIM. PERIOD

It can only be solved politically, and diplomatically, with the citizens, and everyday humans living there in mind.

And it already has been. The major gripe here is, Israel and USA go all rambo on everyone there, playing the victim but at the same time wielding the biggest atomic arsenal in history. And violating every possible international law and arrangement there is.

And there isnt only onle solution to the problem. In fact there are 3.

The tribes case was an example that connecting the land to one specific tribe and thus basing his claim to a „land“ is impossible and completely irrational. The Native Americans have been living in Americas way longer than the modern citizen, but I dont see anyone talking about them haveing the rightful claim to the land, neither after their genocide at the pinnacle of the USA state formation.

If anything, you are alot more connected to that genocide, come on, lets see you working. Start a group, make a rally or something. Occupy Indian street.

I fail to see what you are aiming at ? Somehow that Muslims, that formed later, do not stem from any of the original tribes ? Or that they are out of the question because they came later??

guys, simply put. Who was where first, is irrelevant, is not an acceptable argument in this, nor any serious historical debate. Modern nations form as a result of identity, national spirit and objetive comformity to a certain traditional core. Linguistical, ethnical and political borders are separate entities, which do not allow equation.

You have different nations who speak the same language, you have same nations that speak different languages and have one nation with separate borders, several nations within same borders...etc.

The case solution here is age old Rousseauean one, that of a Social Contract.

I don't listen to him much or know much about him but he is obviously part of this liberal movement that does indeed include many naricisstic Jews who are for the one world government. And of course "smart government". He sits there smuggly lecturing anyone who will listen on what is best for all of us.

Anything less is outdated, midevil, stupid, ignorant and on the wrong side of history.

I don't quite get the concept that Jews in Israel are for this big expansion. They simply want that piece of land the size of NJ.

keep in mind though that this is a symbolic map. A big part of the palestinian loss of land is because of their strict no bargain chip-policy, which usually resulted in warfare. It is also warfare that resulted in the now occupied lands, that Israel doesnt want to back off from, claiming safety issues. This is in part what Chomsky says that the radical forms of rebelion in Palestine are making it harder for them to reach a better solution. But still, this is might makes right on every level. Check the statistics link lower on some actual raw numbers

a couple interesting links from Btselem : The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

"Dont you think the logic that somehow thinkers that critisize a certain country should go somewhere more akin to what they are saying, is a bit childish?"

You misunderstand my point, Andrew. I was pointing out how the people of the world vote with their feet when given the opportunity, and it isn't to the "Worker's Paradises" that Chomsky and his ilk praise. It isn't to North Korea, Saudi Arabia or any other "scientifically marxist" or sharia state. Chomsky would never pick up and move from the US. Playing to the anti-american/anti-western bigotries pays too well, as Frau-eed and others have long exploited.

I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of Chomsky and his breed of hatemongers and what the people of the world really know vs. the leftist narrative.

While Ahmadinejad indeed acts a madman, I have doubts that if push comes to shove, the nuclear tools would be just flying everywhere. They have much too much to loose. Do you think they would nuke the terrtiory, then go live there afterwards ? The whole area would be destroyed and impossible to settle for at least 50-100 years or more, dunno the facts, im no physicist. I severly doubt that solution, although you never know with crazy folks...Besides that, they would get insurmountable number of enemies, from states in their direct proximity, due to fallout and the like, not to mention the reaction of the international community.

although I think they are actually far behind with obtaining the actual weapon, the talks lately, IMHO are purely Machiavellian diversions. What they are getting with this, is a different bargaining solution. Lets use the lowest estimate, that Israel has 75 nukes (highest are around 400s), which is more than enough for the cataclysm. Iran would eventually get 1. Underpowered, yes, but also more than enough to cause the end.

but, it is a more balanced position to enter negotiations from. The prospect of the end of man, has brought the longest era of peace in Europe in history of humanity. Call me naive, but I call bluff on Ahmadinejad and the Big Mushroom, if Iran indeed comes up with the weapon, which I heavily doubt it will, unless it gets stolen, sold, or the like

@GM

Chomsky hardly ever praises Workers paradises GM, let alone North Korea. His political spectrum, if anything, is Anarchism, which is as far away state control as possible. And again, the antiWest bigotry comment is well misplaced, in my opinion. The role of the critic is to do what ? Critisize. And since philosophy of language and philosophy in general is at heart a critical doctrine, at least since the dialectic of Enlightenment that he is following, its what he does.

Ok show me an example of his Anti-Semitism, and what an Anti-Semite is for you today

But all in all, ive been to one of his discussions, live. He is a very approachable dude, incredibly systematic and will hear anyone out, so I urge you, if you think you have all the answers, please, go to one of his talks, wait for the Q and A and show him wrong infront of everyone there and the world, if the event will be filmed. Better come well prepared.

Aside from all his obvious flaws and his detatchment from reality, he lies when forced to face some of his prior statements.

This is an old one, but I have acquired new readers since. It's worth the telling.

I have once taken part in an exchange with Professor Chomsky. I wrote an article for Prospect magazine in November 2005 taking issue with the proposition, which was the magazine's cover story, that Chomsky was "the world's top public intellectual". Among my reasons for dissent was his dishonest handling of source material. I also noted, in my account of his political thinking:

Chomsky's first book on politics, American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) grew from protest against the Vietnam war. But Chomsky went beyond the standard left critique of US imperialism to the belief that "what is needed [in the US] is a kind of denazification."

Chomsky replied in the magazine's issue for January 2006. Wedged among flattering charges of my "tacit acquiescence to horrendous crimes", Chomsky wrote:

Proceeding further to demonstrate my "central" doctrine, Kamm misquotes my statement that "We have to ask ourselves whether what is needed in the United States is dissent - or denazification."

The full passage from American Power runs as follows (p. 17, emphasis added):

We have to ask ourselves whether what is needed in the United States is dissent – or denazification. The question is a debatable one. Reasonable people may differ. The fact that the question is even debatable is a terrifying thing. To me it seems that what is needed is a kind of denazification.

So in his article for Prospect, Chomsky quoted just the first sentence of this passage, to imply he had thought it an open question whether the US needed "denazification". He ignored the sentence 20-odd words later that expressed exactly the sentiment, in exactly the words, that I attributed to him. He then had the gall to complain that I had misquoted his statement.

Note that the quotation Chomsky gives is accurate, so far as it goes - it's just the wrong sentence. The wording (including spelling out "United States" instead of abbreviating it) and the punctuation are as he wrote them nearly 40 years earlier. It is a reasonable inference that he must have had the book open in front of him when he composed his reply to me. What the man can possibly have been thinking is a mystery. Perhaps he thought I wouldn't have the book, or that he'd have the last word and no one would check it. As it was, the editor of Prospect graciously allowed me to conclude the exchange with a 250-word letter in the next issue to state my central objection to Chomsky's reply. My central objection was, naturally, that in responding to a piece charging him with dishonesty in citing source material, it was singular for Chomsky to prove my point by distorting source material that he had himself written.

Oliver Kamm is quite a well known journalist, and a critic of Chomsky. Usually intellectuals have critics. Why ? Because they are dissidents, they think differently and act differently aswell.

but still, how does this fact alone anyhow degrade him ? Even if he were cought in his own bind, people get stuff wrong, why is this a case for the petty gibbersih name calling ?

And obvious flaws, detachment from reality sound very poetic, id like to hear or read some more of this.

Kamm Chomsky polemic is hardly black and white. And is quite known. As with the Said "frauds" you posted, there is hardly ever a quote/post here that deals with actual thoughts from the person being charged

"He begins as a preacher to the world and ends as an intellectual crook.”- Arthur Schlesinger(Commentary, December 1969)

“Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader’sattention from the plain truth.”- Sidney Hook(The Humanist, March-April 1971)

“In his ideological fanaticism he constantly shifts his arguments and bends references,quotations and facts, while declaring his ‘commitment to find the truth.’”- Leopold Labedz(Encounter, July 1980)

“Even on the rare occasions when Mr. Chomsky is dealing with facts and not with fantasies,he exaggerates by a factor of, plus or minus, four or five.”- Walter Laqueur(The New Republic, March 24, 1982)

“After many years, I came to the conclusion that everything he says is false. He will lie justfor the fun of it. Every one of his arguments was tinged and coded with falseness andpretense. It was like playing chess with extra pieces. It was all fake.”- Paul Postal(The New Yorker, March 31, 2003)

I. 10 Chomsky Lies About Communist Mass Murderers – General10.The Lie: “in comparison to the conditions imposed by US tyranny and violence, East Europeunder Russian rule was practically a paradise.”1The Truth: The communists murdered 4 million people in the Ukraine; 753,000 in Poland;360,000 in Romania; 300,000 in Belarus; 200,000 in Hungary; 100,000 in East Germany;100,000 in Lithuania; 70,000-100,000 in Yugoslavia; 30,000-40,000 in Bulgaria; 20,000 inCzechoslovakia; and 5,000 in Albania. Other atrocities included the murder of over 500,000POWs in Soviet captivity and the mass rape of at least 2 million women by the Red Army.29.The Lie: “Western norms require that we compare Eastern and Western Europe todemonstrate our virtue and their vileness, a childish absurdity… Elementary rationality wouldlead someone interested in alternative social and economic paths to compare societies thatwere more or less alike before the Cold War began, say Russia or Brazil… Such comparisons,if honestly undertaken, would elicit some self-reflection among decent people…”3The Truth: In Russia, Lenin’s food confiscations inflicted famine on over 33 million people,including 7 million children, and left 4-5 million dead; Stalin’s assault on the peasants killedanother 8.5 million, half of them children.4 Brazil experienced nothing of the kind.8.The Lie: “Internal [Soviet] crimes abated [after 1945]; though remaining very serious theywere scarcely at the level of typical American satellites, a commonplace in the Third World,where the norms of Western propriety do not hold.”5The Truth: In 1947, the Soviets withheld food from famine victims, causing up to 1.5 milliondeaths.6 During 1945-53, there were over 300,000 officially recorded deaths in the Gulag; by1 Letter reprinted in Alexander Cockburn, The Golden Age Is In Us (Verso, 1995), pp149-51.2 Sergei Maksudov, “Victory Over the Peasantry,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Fall 2001, p229(Ukraine); Marek Tuszynski, “Soviet War Crimes Against Poland During the Second World War andits Aftermath,” The Polish Review, Vol. 44, No. 2, 1999, pp183-215 (Poland); Martyn Rady, Romaniain Turmoil (I.B. Tauris, 1992), p31 (Romania); Washington Post, January 16, 1994 (Belarus); TamasStark, “Genocide or Genocidal Massacre? The Case of Hungarian Prisoners in Soviet Custody,”Human Rights Review, April-June 2000, pp109-18 (Hungary); Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1991(East Germany); US News & World Report, October 20, 1997 (Lithuania); New York Times, July 9,1990 (Yugoslavia); Karel Bartosek, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” in Stephane Courtois, ed., TheBlack Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1999), p395 (Bulgaria); Philadelphia Inquirer,November 3, 1999 (Czechoslovakia); New York Times, July 8, 1997 (Albania); David M. Glantz andJonathan House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (University Press of Kansas,1995), p307 (POWs); Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945 (Penguin, 2003), p410 (rapes).3 World Orders, Old and New (Pluto Press, 1994), p40.4 Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Vintage, 1995), pp410-9; Roman Serbyn, “TheFamine of 1921-1923” in Roman Serbyn and Bohdan Krawchenko, eds., Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933(Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986), p169 (Lenin); Sergei Maksudov, “Victory Over thePeasantry,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Fall 2001, p229 (Stalin).5 World Orders, Old and New (Columbia University Press, 1996), p39.6 Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,” CambridgeJournal of Economics, September 2000, pp603-30.21953, the slave population exceeded 5.2 million.7 No American satellite – whether in Europeor in Latin America – was guilty of anything even remotely comparable.7.The Lie: “In the Soviet sphere of influence, torture appears to have been on the decline sincethe death of Stalin… Since it has declined in the Soviet sphere since the death of Stalin, itwould appear that this cancerous growth is largely a Free World phenomenon.”8The Truth: Until the late 1980s, the Soviets ran 1,000 concentration camps where at least 2million inmates endured constant violence. Torture was systematic in Soviet satellites in theThird World.96.The Lie: “Imagine the reaction if the Soviet police were to deal with refuseniks in any waycomparable to the Israeli [anti-riot] practices that briefly reached the television screens.”10The Truth: The Soviet police held 10,000 dissidents in psychiatric prisons and concentrationcamps. An estimated 50,000 were sent to uranium mines to die of radiation poisoning.11 Suchpractices elicited no reaction because the Soviets did not allow them to reach the televisionscreens.5.The Lie: “[Regarding] China’s actions in Tibet… it is a bit too simple to say that ‘China didindeed take over a country that did not want to be taken over.’ This is by no means the generalview of Western scholarship.”12The Truth: The Chinese invasion provoked massive popular uprisings. Mao welcomed theTibetan resistance because it could be crushed by force. State terror and man-made faminehad killed up to 500,000 Tibetans by the mid-1960s.134.The Lie: “It’s clear, I believe, that the emphasis on the use of terror and violence in Chinawas considerably less than in the Soviet Union and that the success was considerably greaterin achieving a just society.”147 Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History (Doubleday, 2003), pp583, 579, 581.8 The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), p8.9 Avraham Shifrin, The First Guidebook to Prisons and Concentration Camps of the Soviet Union(Bantam Books, 1982); US News & World Report, May 19, 1986. For the Third World, see, e.g.,Armando Valladares, Against All Hope (Coronet, 1987), pp400-26; Nghia M. Vo, The Bamboo Gulag:Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam (McFarland, 2004), pp133-6.10 Fateful Triangle (rev. ed., Pluto Press, 1999), p486.11 Wall Street Journal, December 21, 1984; US News & World Report, May 19, 1986; The Times, UK,July 11, 1986.12 Letters, New York Review of Books, April 20, 1967.13 Warren W. Smith, Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations(Westview Press, 1996), pp399-412, 440-50, 548-51, 600; Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: TheUnknown Story (Jonathan Cape, 2005), pp473-7 (revolts); Patrick French, Tibet, Tibet (HarperCollins,2003), p292 (deaths).14 Alexander Klein, ed., Dissent, Power, and Confrontation (McGraw-Hill, 1971), p112.3The Truth: China’s communists officially stated that they had executed 800,000 in the firstfew years of their dictatorship; unofficially, they admitted to the massacre of 2 million in justone year. Concentration camps held an estimated 8 million, with 280,000 killed annually. Thecommunists publicly declared that they had persecuted 20-30 million as class enemies in theirfirst decade and that there were 100 million victims of the Cultural Revolution.153.The Lie: “There are many things to object to in any society. But take China, modern China;one also finds many things that are really quite admirable… [In China] a good deal of thecollectivization and communization was really based on mass participation and took placeafter a level of understanding had been reached in the peasantry that led to this next step.”16The Truth: The communists reduced 550 million peasants to slavery. They forced at least 90million to work on furnace-building projects alone. When famine resulted, they cut the foodration and used mass terror to stop the peasants eating their own harvest. Victims, includingchildren, were tortured, buried alive, strangled or mutilated.172.The Lie: “Also relevant is the history of collectivization in China, which, as compared withthe Soviet Union, shows a much higher reliance on persuasion and mutual aid than on forceand terror, and appears to have been more successful.”18The Truth: Its culmination was the Great Leap Forward, the worst man-made catastrophe inhistory, in which 30 million died.191.The Lie: “Of course, no one supposed that Mao literally murdered tens of millions of people,or that he ‘intended’ that any die at all.”20The Truth: Mao spoke of sacrificing 300 million people, or half of China’s population. Hewarned that the policies he later adopted would kill 50 million people. Grain exported by thecommunists was sufficient to feed the numbers who starved to death, which they privatelyestimated at 30 million.2115 New York Times, June 13, 1957 (official executions); November 15, 1970 (unofficial figure); JoelKotek and Pierre Rigoulot, Le siècle des camps (Jean-Claude Lattès, 2000), p647 (camps); The Times,UK, November 14, 1984 (first decade); New York Times, November 17, 1980 (Cultural Revolution).16 Alexander Klein, ed., Dissent, Power, and Confrontation (McGraw-Hill, 1971), pp117-8.17 Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (Jonathan Cape, 2005), pp450, 452-4.18 American Power and the New Mandarins (rev. ed., The New Press, 2002), p137n56.19 Basil Ashton, Kenneth Hill, Alan Piazza, Robin Zeitz, “Famine in China, 1958-61,” Population andDevelopment Review, December 1984, p614.20 “Second Reply to Casey,” ZNet, September 2001: http://www.zmag.org/chomreply2.htm21 Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (Jonathan Cape, 2005), pp457-8. Cf. CarlRiskin, “Seven Questions About the Chinese Famine of 1959-61,” China Economic Review, Autumn1998, p119: “enough was known to let us conclude that ignorance is not even an accurate excuse.”4II. 10 Chomsky Lies About Communist Mass Murderers – Indochina10.The Lie: “the basic sources for the larger estimates of killings in the North Vietnamese landreform were persons affiliated with the CIA or the Saigon Propaganda Ministry… there is noevidence that the leadership ordered or organized mass executions of peasants.”22The Truth: Reports from North Vietnamese defectors suggested that 50,000 were massacred.A Hungarian diplomat was told that 60,000 were massacred. A French leftist witness wrotethat 100,000 had been slaughtered. Land reform cadres reported 120,000-160,000 killed. Aformer official has said that 172,000 were killed or driven to suicide in a “genocide triggeredby class discrimination.” Victims’ families starved to death under the policy of “isolation.”239.The Lie: “Revolutionary success in Vietnam both in theory and practice was based primarilyon understanding and trying to meet the needs of the masses… A movement geared towinning support from the rural masses is not likely to resort to bloodbaths among the ruralpopulation.”24The Truth: Viet Cong death squads assassinated at least 37,000 civilians in South Vietnam;the real figure was far higher since the data mostly cover 1967-72. They also waged a massmurder campaign against civilian hamlets and refugee camps; in the peak war years, nearly athird of all civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities.258.The Lie: “given the very confused state of events and evidence plus the total unreliability ofUS-Saigon ‘proofs,’ at a minimum it can be said that the NLF-DRV ‘bloodbath’ at Hue [inSouth Vietnam] was constructed on flimsy evidence indeed.”26The Truth: The communists boasted of murdering thousands in Hue. One regiment reportedthat its units alone killed 1,000 victims. Another report mentioned 2,867 killed. Yet anotherdocument boasted of over 3,000 killed. A further document listed 2,748 executions.277.The Lie: “In a phenomenon that has few parallels in Western experience, there appear to havebeen close to zero retribution deaths in postwar Vietnam. This miracle of reconciliation andrestraint… has been almost totally ignored.”28The Truth: A prominent defector reported that 50,000-100,000 had been massacred. An expoliticalprisoner and a former Gulag commander said that 200,000 Viet Cong deserters were22 The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), pp342, 432n168.23 Robert F. Turner, Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development (Hoover Institution Press,1975), pp141-3, 155-7 (defectors, diplomat, isolation); Gerard Tongas, L'enfer communiste au NordViêt-Nam (Nouvelles Editions Debresse, 1960), p222 (French leftist); Lam Thanh Liem, “Chinh sachcai cach ruong dat cua Ho Chi Minh,” in Jean-Francois Revel et al., Ho Chi Minh (Nam A, 1990), p203(cadres); interview, Radio Free Asia, June 8, 2006 (official).24 The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), pp340-1.25 Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 1978), pp272-3, 448-9.26 The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), p352.27 Stephen T. Hosmer, Viet Cong Repression and its Implications for the Future (Rand, 1970), pp73-4.28 The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (South End Press, 1979), p28.5targets for execution. Mass expulsions caused the drowning of 200,000-400,000 boat people,according to the UN High Commission for Refugees.296.The Lie: “When the war ended in 1975, the victorious Pathet Lao appear to have made someefforts to achieve a reconciliation with the mountain tribesmen who had been organized in theCIA clandestine army [in Laos].”30The Truth: The Pathet Lao waged a campaign of genocide, murdering an estimated 100,000tribespeople. They inflicted massacres, terror bombing, concentration camps and mass rape.315.The Lie: “it seems fair to describe the responsibility of the United States and Pol Pot foratrocities during ‘the decade of the genocide’ as being roughly in the same range.”32The Truth: Demographic evidence indicates that America killed about 40,000 Khmer Rougefighters and Cambodian civilians during 1970-5, and that the Khmer Rouge murdered at least1.8 million civilians during 1975-9.334.The Lie: “The harshest critics claim that perhaps 100,000 people have been slaughtered [inCambodia]… Comparing East Timor with Cambodia, we see that the time frame of allegedatrocities is the same, the numbers allegedly slaughtered are roughly comparable in absoluteterms, and five to ten times as high in East Timor relative to population… my own conclusionis that the sources in the [case of] East Timor are more credible…”34The Truth: A Truth Commission found that the Indonesian war in East Timor caused 18,600violent killings and 75,000-183,000 deaths from hunger and illness.35 Genocide investigatorshave determined that the Khmer Rouge perpetrated 1.1 million violent killings and murdered2.2 million victims overall.363.The Lie: “If 2-2½ million people… have been systematically slaughtered by a band ofmurderous thugs [then intervention is sought]… [But not] if the figure of those killed were,29 Human Events, August 27, 1977 (defector); Al Santoli, ed., To Bear Any Burden (Indiana UniversityPress, 1999), pp272, 292-3 (prisoner, commander); Associated Press, June 23, 1979, San Diego Union,July 20, 1986 (boat people). See generally Nghia M. Vo, The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonmentin Communist Vietnam (McFarland, 2004) and The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975-1992(McFarland, 2006).30 After the Cataclysm (South End Press, 1979), p122.31 Forced Back and Forgotten (Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, 1989), p8 (estimate); JaneHamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 (Indiana Uniersity Press, 1999), pp337-460 (atrocities).32 Manufacturing Consent (Vintage, 1994), pp264-5.33 Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995),pp41-8, 57.34 Radical Priorities (rev. ed., AK Press, 2003), p80.35 Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR),January 30, 2006, part 6, paras. 47, 56-7: http://www.ictj.org/en/news/features/846.html36 Craig Etcheson, After the Killing Fields (Praeger, 2005), p119.6say, less by a factor of 100 – that is, 25,000 people… [or] if the deaths in Cambodia were notthe result of systematic slaughter and starvation organized by the state…”37The Truth: No honest observer thought that only 25,000 died under the Khmer Rouge or thatthe mass deaths were not the result of systematic slaughter and starvation. A UN investigationreported 2-3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million dead.38 Even the Khmer Rougeacknowledged 2 million deaths – which they attributed to the Vietnamese invasion.392.The Lie: “the evacuation of Phnom Penh [by the Khmer Rouge], widely denounced at thetime and since for its undoubted brutality, may actually have saved many lives.”40The Truth: At least 30,000 very young children died as a direct result of the Khmer Rougeevacuation of Phnom Penh.41 In total, at least 870,000 men, women and children from PhnomPenh died under the Khmer Rouge dictatorship.421.The Lie: “At the end of 1978 Cambodia [under the Khmer Rouge] was the only country inIndochina that had succeeded at all in overcoming the agricultural crisis that was left by theAmerican destruction.”43The Truth: Famine killed over 950,000 people under the Khmer Rouge.44 By late 1979, UNand Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million faced starvation thanks to “thenear destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of the ousted Prime Minister PolPot.” They found starving children wherever they went.4537 After the Cataclysm (South End Press, 1979), pp138-9.38 William Shawcross, The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience(Touchstone, 1985), p115-6.39 Khieu Samphan, Interview, Time, March 10, 1980.40 After the Cataclysm (South End Press, 1979), p160.41 Ea Meng-Try, “Kampuchea: A Country Adrift,” Population and Development Review, June 1981,p214.42 Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995),p57.43 Language and Politics (AK Press, 2004), pp245-6. Cf.: “it was a condition of survival to turn (orreturn) the populations to productive work. The victors in Cambodia undertook drastic and often brutalmeasures to accomplish this task… At a heavy cost, these measures appear to have overcome the direand destructive consequences of the US war by 1978,” After the Cataclysm (South End Press, 1979), pviii.44 Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995),p82.45 New York Times, August 8, 1979.